India Journal: Was 26/11 Unique?

It is that day again: Time to focus on what most Mumbaikars try not to think about the other 363 days of the year. On the third anniversary of the terror attacks that hit the city on Nov. 26, 2008, we are reminded of those sleepless nights glued to the television and frantic phone calls to check in on family and friends.

It also gives us an opportunity, with a little perspective, to ask an important question: Where do the attacks stand in India’s history of terror?

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The widespread use of the very term 26/11 sets these attacks apart in the public consciousness with its clear reference to the 9/11 terminology of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. It is a terminology with which Indians have a love-hate relationship. One the one hand, it suggests that India’s misfortunes can only evoke international sympathy and status if they are in some way positioned as satellites of America’s darkest hour of the new century.

On the other hand, it has helped imprint in our minds a shorthand reference for the outrage, anger and despair both attacks evoked. We’ve used our own order of days and months: if we were really tying it so closely to 9/11 in our minds, we’d call it 11/26. But, as someone who lived in the U.S. during 9/11 and in Mumbai during 26/11, I can say that both were similar in their ability to shake people to their core.

Yet 9/11, in part, remains so resonant in the U.S. precisely because of its uniqueness – there had not been a similar incident before or has not been one since. Unfortunately for India, we can’t say the same. Nor do we have the might to mount military operations as the U.S. Navy Seals did to kill Osama bin Laden and bring some closure to 9/11. Instead, we use that parallel get the U.S. to pressure Pakistan on our behalf. That’s part of the frustration that remembering the Mumbai attacks conjures up in us: The U.S. has managed to protect itself and retaliate since; we have not, as the July 13 blasts in Mumbai markets – of course we dubbed it 13/7 – reminded us.

Indeed, in many ways 26/11 is inseparable from the rash of terrorism that India has suffered in its recent past, in part because of our government’s own failings, in part because we live in a dangerous neighborhood.

In addition to the widespread restiveness in Punjab and Kashmir, the 1980s saw the high-profile assassinations of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and General Arun Vaidya, a former chief of army staff who had led Operation Blue Star to remove Sikh separatists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

The 1990s saw a different and more deadly form of terror after the Babri Masjid was demolished and riots broke out in Mumbai. At least two rounds of rioting ended with Muslims being targeted like they never had been before. This led to the planning of 13 coordinated bomb blasts across the city, including the stock exchange, hotels, and movie theatres. Almost 250 people died, exceeding the 26/11 death toll by close to 100.

These left the city ghettoized and scarred and it strengthened the underworld.

There was also the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 814 by Islamist terrorists and the attack on the Indian Parliament blamed on Pakistan-based terror groups. There were the 2006 train blasts in Mumbai, where seven blasts took place within a few minutes in the city’s suburban trains, killing more than 200. There are the almost daily accounts of death and destruction at the hands of the Maoists in central and eastern India.

We may not see a replica of 26/11 as terrorists try to find other weaknesses in our security apparatus to exploit and Indian authorities, we must hope, plug the holes that are exposed by each attack. But no-one can claim objectively that it was a one-off. It was part of the milieu.

And yet.

Terror attacks are not just about how many people were killed but also about the fear and outcry they evoke. By those measurements, 26/11 still stands apart. Because the attacks were televised for three days and the whole world saw them unfold, they have scarred Indians in a way that is not easily forgettable.

As importantly, we continue to be reminded of 26/11 almost every day: it is the ghost that looms over India-Pakistan relations even now. The only captured terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, sits in a Mumbai jail cell. Pakistan has not handed over the masterminds and India accuses it of dragging its feet over their trials in Pakistan. Pakistan, meanwhile, continues to use those on trial as a bargaining chip, as the recent furor over “memogate” showed. And, as the outrage over 7/13 showed, when we are struck again – in Mumbai, or Pune or Delhi — we are immediately taken back to 26/11.

A few weeks ago, Pakistan granted India Most Favored Nation trading status, which will mean freer access for Indian products to Pakistani markets. Zafar Mahmood, Pakistan’s commerce secretary, was in Delhi to discuss the normalization of trade last week. “Times have changed. World is coming closer,” he said. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently called for a new chapter in India-Pakistan relations as he pushes for closer ties.

But even those moves do less to help us move on from 26/11 than they do to remind us of how much remains to be done in its aftermath. The governments of India and Pakistan may be gingerly beginning the process of exorcising the ghosts of 26/11. But public sentiment will not allow it to go too far yet precisely because there has not been closure for the victims of those three horrific days three years ago or for the nation that suffered along with them.

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India Real Time offers analysis and insights into the broad range of developments in business, markets, the economy, politics, culture, sports, and entertainment that take place every single day in the world’s largest democracy. Regular posts from Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires reporters around the country provide a unique take on the main stories in the news, shed light on what else mattered and why, and give global readers a snapshot of what Indians have been talking about all week. You can contact the editors at indiarealtime(at)wsj(dot)com.